Last Updated June 13, 2026
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) explains how The Next Step (“The Next Step,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information when you visit or interact with our websites at www.thenextstepsenior.com and www.theonedecisionrule.com, together with any related landing pages, registration and masterclass pages, call-booking calendars, forms, marketing communications, and offers we make available through those websites (collectively, the “Services”). It also describes the choices and rights you may have under applicable United States and Texas law.
Please read this Policy carefully. By accessing or using the Services, submitting information through any of our forms, booking an appointment, making a purchase, or opting in to receive communications from us, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Policy. If you do not agree with our practices, please do not use the Services or submit information to us.
This Policy is incorporated into and forms part of our Terms of Service. Capitalized terms used but not defined here have the meanings given to them in the Terms of Service.
1. Who We Are
The Next Step is a Houston, Texas-based senior care placement and strategy business. We help families, most often an adult son or daughter making decisions on behalf of an aging parent, identify and evaluate an appropriate senior living community, and we offer related educational content, including the book The One Decision Rule. Placement guidance is provided to families at no charge; we are compensated through referral fees paid by senior living communities, as described in our Terms of Service.
The Services are operated by The Next Step Placement Services LLC, a Texas limited liability company doing business as "The Next Step." "The One Decision Rule" is a brand of The Next Step Placement Services LLC. References in this Policy to "The Next Step," "we," "us," or "our" mean The Next Step Placement Services LLC.
The legal entity responsible for your personal information under this Policy (the “controller”) is:
Legal entity name: The Next Step Placement Services LLC
Entity type and state of formation: Limited liability company formed in Texas
Principal place of business: 19214 Clay Road, Suite C #2012, Katy, Texas 77449
2. Scope of This Policy
This Policy applies to personal information we collect through the Services, whether you interact with www.thenextstepsenior.com, www.theonedecisionrule.com, our registration and masterclass pages, our call-booking calendar, our email and text-message communications, or our paid offers, including the sale of The One Decision Rule.
The Services are directed to individuals located in the United States, and specifically to residents of Texas. We do not offer the Services to individuals in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions outside the United States, and this Policy is not intended to address the requirements of privacy laws outside the United States.
This Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties we do not own or control, including senior living communities, advertising platforms, payment processors, or other websites you may reach through links. Those third parties handle your information under their own privacy policies.
3. Personal Information We Collect
We collect personal information that you provide directly, information generated automatically when you interact with the Services, and information we receive from third parties. The categories below reflect the current design of our websites and marketing funnels and are not necessarily an exhaustive description of every activity we may undertake.
3.1 Information You Provide Directly
When you complete our opt-in, registration, masterclass, or checkout forms, or when you book an appointment, you may provide:
Identity and contact information, such as your name, email address, telephone or mobile number, and mailing address.
Billing and shipping information, such as your billing address and the mailing address used to ship physical copies of the book. Payment card details are collected and processed by our third-party payment processor and are not stored by us, as described in Section 5 and Section 12.
Qualifying and intake information, such as your responses to the access-qualifying questions on our landing and masterclass registration forms.
Appointment information, such as the details you enter when scheduling a call through our booking calendar (the information associated with a Qualified Booked Appointment).
Communications, such as the content of messages, questions, or feedback you send us by email, text message, or through our forms.
3.2 Information Relating to Senior Care Needs
Because of the nature of our placement services, the information you voluntarily provide may include details about an aging parent or family member and their care situation, such as care preferences, budget, location, and the circumstances relevant to selecting a senior living community. You decide what to share with us, and we use this information solely to provide placement guidance and related services. Please do not submit medical records, diagnoses, or other detailed health information through our forms, as our forms are not designed to collect that information.
3.3 Information Collected Automatically
When you visit our websites, we and our service providers automatically collect certain information using cookies, pixels, conversion application programming interfaces (APIs), and similar technologies, including:
Device and technical data, such as your IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, and general location inferred from your IP address.
Usage and interaction data, such as the pages you visit, the links and buttons you click, the forms you submit, the appointments you book, referring and exit pages, and the dates and times of your visits.
Advertising and measurement data, such as identifiers and event data generated by advertising pixels and conversion APIs that allow us and the advertising platforms to measure and optimize our campaigns.
Section 8 describes these technologies and your choices, including how we respond to browser-based opt-out signals.
3.4 Information We Receive From Third Parties
We may receive information about you from advertising platforms, analytics providers, and our CRM and automation providers, such as whether you clicked one of our ads, how you were referred to our websites, and aggregated or hashed audience information used to deliver and measure advertising.
4. How We Use Your Personal Information
We use personal information for the following business and commercial purposes:
To provide placement services, including responding to inquiries, understanding your family’s needs, and helping you identify and evaluate senior living communities.
To schedule and manage appointments, including confirming, reminding, rescheduling, and following up on the calls you book.
To sell and deliver products, including processing your purchase of The One Decision Rule, delivering instant bonuses, first-chapter and audiobook content, and full-book access, and shipping physical copies to the address you provide.
To communicate with you, including transactional messages (such as confirmations, receipts, reminders, and shipping updates) and, where you have opted in, marketing messages (such as newsletters, event and workshop invitations, call invitations, and offers) by email and text message.
To advertise and grow our business, including building and delivering campaigns, creating custom and lookalike audiences, retargeting visitors who did not complete an action, and measuring and optimizing campaign performance.
To operate, secure, and improve the Services, including analyzing usage, maintaining reliability and security, detecting and preventing fraud and abuse, and improving our content and offers.
To comply with law and enforce our terms, including meeting legal, regulatory, and record-keeping obligations, responding to lawful requests, and enforcing our Terms of Service.
5. How We Share Your Personal Information
We share personal information only as described below. We describe recipients by category because the specific vendors we use may change over time. We do not sell your personal information for money, and, as stated in Section 7, we do not share the text-message opt-in and consent information described there with any third parties or affiliates for their own marketing purposes.
5.1 Senior Living Communities
When we help you evaluate or move forward with a senior living community, we share the information reasonably necessary to facilitate that placement, such as your contact details and the care-related preferences you have provided, with the community or communities relevant to your family’s needs. This sharing is a core function of the placement service you have asked us to provide. Senior living communities are independent third parties that use your information under their own privacy policies. As described in our Terms of Service, we receive a referral fee from a community when a client we refer moves in.
5.2 Service Providers and Processors
We share personal information with third-party service providers that perform functions on our behalf, subject to obligations to protect the information and use it only to provide services to us. These include, by category:
CRM and marketing automation providers that host our contacts, calendar, funnels, and messaging sequences (currently Odoo and GoHighLevel).
Payment processors that collect and process payment card information and handle related billing and refunds.
Fulfillment and shipping providers that print, package, and ship physical copies of the book using the mailing address you provide.
Messaging and telephony providers that transmit our email and text-message communications, as further described in Section 7.
Analytics, hosting, and technology providers that support the operation, measurement, and security of the Services.
5.3 Advertising Platforms
We work with more than one advertising platform to promote our offers. Each platform provides a pixel or conversion API that receives certain visitor and event data so that we can build audiences, deliver and retarget advertising, and measure campaign performance. Depending on how these tools are configured and on the definitions in applicable Texas law, some of this activity may be considered “targeted advertising” or a “sale” of personal information. Section 8 and Section 10 explain how you can opt out, including through a recognized universal opt-out signal.
5.4 Legal, Safety, and Business Transfers
We may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with applicable law or legal process; to respond to lawful requests from public authorities; to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Next Step, our clients, or others; to enforce our agreements; or in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of all or part of our business, in which case we will require the recipient to honor this Policy or provide notice of any material change.
6. Advertising, Retargeting, and Custom Audiences
We use website-visitor data and, in some cases, contact lists shared with advertising platforms to build custom audiences of existing leads and lookalike audiences of similar people, and to retarget visitors who viewed our pages but did not take the next step. This means you may see our ads on third-party platforms and websites after visiting our Services. The advertising platforms may match hashed identifiers, such as an email address, to their own users to deliver and measure this advertising. You can limit interest-based advertising using the choices described in Section 8, and you can opt out of the sale of personal information and targeted advertising as described in Section 10 and Section 17.
7. Text Message (SMS) Program and Mobile Information
If you provide your mobile telephone number and opt in, The Next Step Placement Services LLC (doing business as "The Next Step”) may send you recurring, automated marketing and transactional text messages, such as appointment reminders, follow-ups, and invitations to our workshop, call, and book offers. This section describes how our text-message program works and how we handle the associated information. These terms also appear in our Terms of Service, and the same key disclosures appear at the point where you opt in.
Consent. We send marketing text messages only to individuals who have provided prior express written consent by opting in. Your consent to receive text messages is not a condition of purchasing any goods or services from us.
Message types and frequency. Messages may include appointment reminders, follow-ups, event and registration reminders, and promotional offers. Message frequency varies.
Cost. Message and data rates may apply, depending on your mobile carrier and plan.
Opt out. You can cancel the text-message program at any time by replying STOP to any message. After you send STOP, we will send one confirmation message, and you will no longer receive text messages from that program unless you opt in again.
Help. For help, reply HELP to any message or contact us using the details in Section 1 and Section 24.
Eligibility. Our text-message program is available only to individuals who are 18 years of age or older.
Carriers. Wireless carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
No sharing of mobile opt-in data. We do not share, sell, or otherwise disclose your text-message opt-in or consent information, or the mobile telephone number you provide for the text-message program, with any third parties or affiliates for their own marketing or promotional purposes. We share this information only with the messaging and telephony providers that help us operate the program and deliver the messages you have asked to receive, and as otherwise required to comply with law. This mobile-data limitation controls over any more general description of data sharing elsewhere in this Policy; nothing in Section 5, Section 6, or any other provision should be read to permit the sharing or sale of your text-message opt-in or consent data for third-party or affiliate marketing.
Where text-message data goes. Text messages are transmitted through a third-party messaging and telephony provider and delivered by wireless carriers, which receive the mobile telephone numbers and message content necessary to deliver the messages. Because the underlying provider may change, we describe this recipient by category rather than by name.
8. Cookies, Tracking Technologies, and Analytics
We and our service providers use cookies, web beacons, advertising pixels, conversion APIs, and similar technologies to operate and secure the Services, remember your preferences, understand how the Services are used, and deliver and measure advertising. These technologies record information such as page visits, form submissions, and appointments.
You have several choices about tracking technologies:
Browser controls. Most browsers let you refuse or delete cookies through their settings. If you block certain cookies, some features of the Services may not function properly.
Advertising choices. You can opt out of certain interest-based advertising through the tools offered by the advertising platforms and industry programs such as the Digital Advertising Alliance (www.aboutads.info) and the Network Advertising Initiative (www.networkadvertising.org).
Analytics opt-out. Where we use third-party analytics, you may be able to opt out through the tools those providers make available.
Universal opt-out signals. We recognize and honor recognized universal opt-out mechanisms, such as the Global Privacy Control (GPC). Where your browser or device sends such a signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of the sale of personal information and targeted advertising for that browser or device.
9. Email Communications and Preferences
If you provide your email address or opt in through our forms, we may send you transactional emails (such as confirmations, receipts, reminders, and shipping updates) and, where you have opted in, marketing emails (such as newsletters, event invitations, and offers). You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us. We may still send transactional emails related to your purchases, appointments, or account.
10. Your Texas Privacy Rights
Depending on your circumstances and subject to the exceptions and thresholds in the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Texas residents may have the right to:
Confirm whether we are processing your personal information and access that information.
Correct inaccuracies in your personal information, taking into account its nature and our purposes for processing it.
Delete personal information that you provided or that we obtained about you.
Obtain a portable copy of the personal information you previously provided, in a readable format, where technically feasible.
Opt out of the sale of personal information, of targeted advertising, and of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
11. How to Exercise Your Rights
To exercise the rights described in Section 10, contact us using the details in Section 24. You may also designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf, and we may ask the agent to demonstrate authority. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
Verification and response. We will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding, and we will respond within the time required by applicable law, generally within 45 days, subject to any permitted extension.
Appeals. If we decline to act on your request, we will explain why. You may appeal by contacting us using the details in Section 24 within a reasonable period. If we deny your appeal, you may contact the Texas Attorney General to submit a complaint.
12. Payment Information
When you purchase a paid offer, card details are collected and processed by a third-party payment processor under its own terms and security practices. We do not store your full payment card number. We may receive limited transaction information, such as confirmation of payment, the last digits of your card, and billing details, to fulfill your order, provide receipts, process refunds, and maintain records.
13. Data Retention
We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, including to provide the Services, maintain records of appointments and purchases, comply with our legal and record-keeping obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Where we are required to keep records of text-message consent and opt-out requests, we retain that information for the period required by applicable law and carrier requirements. When personal information is no longer needed, we take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify it.
14. Data Security
We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure, appropriate to the nature of the information involved. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping any credentials you use with the Services confidential.
15. Sensitive Information
We do not seek to collect sensitive personal information as defined under Texas law, such as precise geolocation data, and we ask that you not submit detailed health information through our forms. Where applicable law requires consent before processing any sensitive personal information, we will obtain that consent. If you believe you have provided sensitive information you did not intend to share, please contact us using the details in Section 24.
16. Children’s Privacy
The Services are intended for adults and are not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and our text-message program is available only to individuals who are 18 years of age or older. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us using the details in Section 24 and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.
17. Your Choices Regarding Sale and Targeted Advertising
To opt out of the sale of personal information or targeted advertising, you may: (a) enable a recognized universal opt-out signal such as the Global Privacy Control in your browser or extension; (b) use the advertising and analytics choices described in Section 8; or (c) contact us using the details in Section 24 with your request. We will honor valid requests as required by applicable law.
18. Third-Party Websites and Services
The Services may contain links to, or integrations with, third-party websites and services, including senior living communities, advertising platforms, and payment processors. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. This Policy applies only to the Services, and we encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third party before providing your information to them.
19. Upcoming Offerings
We are developing a bridge financing offering that would use home equity to help families fund senior care transitions. This offering is not currently available. If and when it launches, it may involve the collection and use of additional personal information, and we will update this Policy and provide any additional notice or disclosures required before we begin collecting or using personal information for that offering in a materially different way.
20. Do Not Track
Some browsers offer a “Do Not Track” (DNT) setting. Because there is not yet a common industry standard for how to respond to DNT signals, our Services do not currently respond to DNT signals. We do, however, honor recognized universal opt-out mechanisms such as the Global Privacy Control, as described in Section 8 and Section 17.
21. State-Specific Disclosures
The Services are directed to Texas residents, and this Policy is written to align with the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act. If you are a resident of another U.S. state that provides privacy rights and you interact with the Services, we will honor the rights available to you under the applicable law of your state to the extent it applies to us. Contact us using the details in Section 24 for assistance.
22. United States Processing
The Services are operated in the United States and are intended for users located in the United States. If you access the Services from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those of your location.
23. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, or legal requirements. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Services after an updated Policy becomes effective constitutes your acknowledgment of the updated Policy.
24. How to Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this Policy or our handling of your personal information, or to exercise a privacy right, please contact us:
The Next Step
Attention: Privacy
Email: info@thenextstepsenior.com
Mailing address: 19214 Clay Road, Suite C #2012, Katy, Texas 77449
Telephone: 281-306-5575
Websites: www.thenextstepsenior.com and www.theonedecisionrule.com
